


Hosanna

by semperama



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Sharing a Bed, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-12-01 01:07:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11475414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semperama/pseuds/semperama
Summary: Lewis leaves his home in Nixon, New Jersey and walks to Chicago, following a trail left by a stranger.





	Hosanna

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kunstvogel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kunstvogel/gifts), [jouissant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/gifts).



> This started as a tumblr fic in response to a song prompt by @yonic-flowers, "Aria" by Oh Hiroshima, which gave me major post-apocalypse vibes. Then @moontowers convinced me to expand upon it, and here we are! Thanks for the inspiration, you two. <3 I'm always happy to write more in my favorite genre.

The sign stretched across the highway used to say _Welcome to Chicago_ , and the faded white letters still show through in spots, but they’ve been covered up by black spray paint, a much less inviting message: MOVE ON. STRANGERS UNWELCOME. Lew stops underneath it, so he has has to crane his neck upward and lift a hand to shield his eyes against the beating sun to read it. He’s seen similar ones outside other cities. TURN AROUND. GO BACK. TAKE A DIFFERENT ROUTE. Most of the time, he takes the signs’ advice. This time, he won’t.

He’s been following a trail that started somewhere in Pennsylvania. His third night away from home, he came to a house with a crude drawing scrawled on the door, something that looked like the sun sinking below a wave. When he went inside, he found the place clean and empty of that sweet-rotten smell that signaled death. He found a few cans in the cupboard and a jug of water in the bathroom. He found an unstained mattress and a pillow. After years of building his escape from New Jersey up in his mind, fearing roving bands of marauders or days without food, he instead had a full belly and a full eight hours of good sleep.

At the next town, he found a house with that same symbol, this time on the mailbox. Again he found food and a nice bed and enough water to brush his teeth and clean the sweat off his neck. Again he woke up the next day feeling rested. It happened the same way in the next town, and the next. He’d see the symbol on road signs and trees, directing him down one turn-off or another. Almost three weeks he’s walked, and he has found a safe haven at each stop. Now, he’s going into Chicago whether he’s welcome or not, because he’s become attached to the symbol and the person behind it, the person who must want him to be safe, the person who might be living here in this city waiting for him to come along.

He’s heard stories of the way big cities used to be, before the end. Streets packed with cars, sidewalks teeming with people. So much noise you couldn’t hear yourself think. That part sounds good to Lew—the noise. He thinks he could stand not being able to hear his own thoughts for a while. Chicago is silent now though—has been for decades—its skyscrapers standing like stoic guards over empty streets, burned-out husks of cars, tree roots pushing up through the sidewalks and flowers growing in the gutters. People must live here, if the warning on the highway was any indication, but Lew doesn’t encounter anyone. Not at first. Not for the whole first hour, in which the only sound he hears is his own footsteps on the asphalt.

When they do show up, they come out of nowhere. One minute Lew is walking along alone, and the next there’s a man in the middle of the road and one off to his left with a gun pointed at him and one coming up behind him, if the rapid, shuffling steps are any indication. He bets there are people in the windows above him too, ready to take him out if he makes any sudden moves. He puts his hands up in surrender.

“I don’t want any trouble,” he says. “I’m just passing through.”

“Why didn’t you go around?” says the man standing in front of him in the road. He’s dark-haired and stiff-backed, with a pinched expression that has Lew pegging him for a power-tripping asshole right away. “You were warned.”

“I’m looking for someone.” It isn’t quite a lie.

“Who?”

“A, uh. A friend of mine. They’ve left a trail for me that leads here. A symbol of the sun setting into the ocean. Maybe you’ve seen it?”

Lew thinks it’s a long shot, maybe believable enough to get him a pass to walk on through. What he doesn’t expect is for a voice behind him—close behind him—to say, “What?”

A man walks into his peripheral vision, then continues around in front of him. He has a gun in his hand, but he’s holding it down by his hip, not pointing it at Lew. His hair glows a bright copper in the setting sun reflecting off the skyscrapers’ windows. “You were following my trail?” he says. “Why?”

“I-I don’t know.” Lew is at a loss now. He never thought about what would happen when he reached the end of the line and found the person he was looking for. He never expected it to happen—not really. For all he knew, the trail could have been years old. “I wanted to see where it led.”

“It was for my sister,” the man said. “You didn’t—”

“I didn’t erase anything,” Lew says in a rush. “I didn’t even use up all the food. It’s all still there, as far as I know.”

“Well, looks like you found what you were looking for,” says the other man, the first one who spoke to him, with a sneer in his voice. “Now you can move along.”

But the redhead is squinting at him, leaning closer like he’s trying to figure something out. The hand with the gun has relaxed all the way to his hip. Lew holds his gaze for an uncomfortably long time, until he itches to turn around and walk back the way he came. He never wanted trouble. He only wanted a reason to keep putting one foot in front of the other, a reason not to turn back toward his parents’ compound where things were safe but unbearable. If he had known the reason was just a man, an ordinary man, well—

“Come on, Sobel,” the redhead says, turning away. “He can stay the night, can’t he? He’ll never make it out of town before dark. He can stay with me.”

The leader—Sobel, Lew guesses—clenches his fists and his jaw in frustration, but when Lew glances at the third guy, he sees he’s lowering his gun too. Looks like Sobel’s authority isn’t a solid thing.

“If anything happens, I’m holding you personally responsible,” Sobel says, and before the redhead can respond, he stalks off.

“I don’t mean to cause trouble,” Lew says, but when he looks back at his savior, his trailblazer, he sees that his expression has softened and warmed.

“It’s no trouble.” A hand comes down on Lew’s shoulder, the first human contact he’s felt in weeks. “I’m Winters,” he says. “That was Sobel. And that over there is Welsh.”

Lew jerks a thumb at his own chest. “Nixon.”

“Nixon,” Winters says, like he’s trying it out, seeing how it feels in his mouth. He smiles and gives Lew’s shoulder another squeeze. Lew can feel where each individual finger presses into him, sinking heat into his skin.

“Come with me, Nixon,” Winters says, and Lew says okay. After all, he’s followed him this far.

———

“Where are you coming from?” Winters asks as they walk. He is leading Lew in a zig-zagging path down one block and over another, and Lew wonders if he’s trying to disorient him on purpose or if this is just the safest route through the city.

“New Jersey,” he says. 

“Were you on your own there?”

Lew wants to lie, but he knows he can’t do it convincingly. Even a stranger wouldn’t believe he’s managed to survive in this world alone. “No, I was living with my family. And, uh, a bunch of others.”

“Why’d you leave?” Winters asks, then touches his elbow to turn him sharply down another side street. The casual contact feels strangely intimate, and Lew is disappointed when it ends.

“You ask a lot of questions, you know that?” he says. 

“I’m sort of sticking my neck out for you here, Nixon. Just want to be sure you won’t stab me in my sleep.”

Lew laughs. “Call me Lewis, why don’t you? Or Lew.” ‘Nixon’ is a loaded name, to say the least, and he doesn’t like the way it sounds coming out of Winters’ mouth. “And I promise that’s the last thing on my mind. But then I guess that’s just what someone contemplating stabbing you in your sleep would say.”

Winters peers at him, holding his gaze for the length of several steps, but Lew can’t read his expression, can’t tell if there’s any amusement there. Finally he gestures at his own chest and says, “Dick.” Then asks again: “Why’d you leave?”

He sighs. No charming this one, clearly. “Politics,” he says, “and…family issues. My dad ran the place, so I guess it was six of one, half a dozen of the other, if you know what I mean.”

Winters— _Dick_ —frowns at him. “The place?”

“Fortified compound.” Lew pauses, trying to decide how many details to give away. He should extend trust if he wants to be trusted, and Dick probably isn’t going to gather an army and march to Jersey any time soon. At least, he doesn’t think so. “My family’s been living there since just before the collapse. My grandfather had foresight.”

That’s how the story goes anyway, the one he’s been told time and time again since birth, about how his family’s town—the town of Nixon—came to be. Lewis Nixon the First was a visionary. He saw the temperatures and the oceans rising and realized it was too late to do anything but gather his loved ones, hunker down, and ride it out. And ride it out he did, with help from his considerable wealth and a host of factory workers who were all too happy to hand over all authority to him once the food shortages started and the fighting broke out. Lewis I was a man never to be crossed. He put the whole city to work, and anyone who didn’t listen to him was driven out. He directed the citizens in efforts to build walls and towers—plus several bunkers that luckily never had to be used; once things got bad, everything fell apart too quickly for nukes to come into the picture. Lewis I made sure they had seeds and livestock, then he shut everything up tight and laughed while most of the rest of the world burned. 

By the time Lew was born, the chaos was over and most of the earth was deserted, but he’s heard enough stories that sometimes it feels like he was there. Those stories are the reason he had to leave. They told him of a legacy he knew he couldn’t live up to.

“You’re one of the lucky ones then,” Dick says. His voice has a sharp edge of bitterness to it now.

Lew winces. “What about you?” he asks, eager to change the subject. “You clearly haven’t been here long. What were you doing before?”

“I…we had a farm, in Pennsylvania, but it stopped supporting us.” Dick looks up at the sky, squinting even though the sun made a break for the horizon hours ago and dusk has descended. “My parents got sick—malnourishment probably—and my sister and I decided I would go ahead to find someplace safe for us to stay while she stayed behind to take care of them. That’s why I left the trail for her. We knew our parents weren’t going to recover, but we wanted someone to be with them at the end. Once they pass, she’ll come find me.”

“Jesus.” Nix shakes his head, at a loss for words. He knew intellectually that not everyone had it as good as he had it, but knowing it and hearing a first-hand account are two different things. “I’m sorry.”

Dick shrugs weakly, then points ahead of them down the street. “We’re almost there.”

Their walk has brought them close to the water; Lew can just barely glimpse it there at the end of the street, and gulls wheel through the sky overhead, calling shrilly to one another. The building that is their destination stretches up and up and up, so the apartments at the very top must have a great view of the lake, and Lew wonders how much they would have gone for back when ‘money’ wasn’t something only read about in books. In the lobby, the marble floors are covered with a thin layer of dust and sand, and the security desk sits vacant. Their shuffling steps echo too loudly as they head for the stairs.

“I hope you don’t live on the top floor,” Lew jokes, and that gets a slight grin out of Dick too.

“You walked this far, didn’t you?”

But luckily they only go eight floors up, high enough to have a decent view but not so high that Lew is out of breath when they emerge into a long, dark hallway. There is a window at the far end, but it doesn’t let enough light in to brighten things much. Lew sticks close to Dick’s side until he comes to a stop in front of a door—number 812. He doesn’t bother with a key. The door opens when he turns the knob.

“Where do the others live?” Lew asks as they shuffle inside. It seems strange, how quiet and isolated this place is. He figured in the cities people would live scrunched up together for safety.

“Close enough,” Dick says. “We spread out a little to keep an eye on things, but my closest neighbors are no more than a block away.” He tilts his head toward a walkie-talkie that sits on a table by the door. “We check up on each other.”

The apartment is all one room—a largely defunct kitchen nearest to the door, a wooden table and two chairs beyond that, and a sitting area next to the oversized windows that look out at the city, the sliver of Lake Michigan visible between the buildings. Lew doesn’t see a bedroom, but maybe Dick goes into one of the adjacent apartments to sleep. He could have his pick of them, that’s for sure. He could change rooms every night and it would probably take him over a year to get through every unit.

But no, this place feels lived-in. It’s a little run-down, as all things are a little run-down these days, but Dick has kept it free of clutter and grime, God knows how. Lew imagines him sweeping dirt into a dustpan and carrying it down eight flights of steps to toss it out, and he can’t help but smile. His gaze tracks Dick as he moves around, lighting a lantern on the kitchen counter and another one on a table next to the sofa. When Dick catches him watching, he makes a gesture that’s half-beckoning, half-nonsense.

“Come in,” he says. “Make yourself at home.” 

Lew takes a couple more steps into the room, then slips his pack down off his shoulders. It barely weighs anything now. He wasn’t lying when he said he left most of the food behind, and what little supplies he’d brought with him from Nixon had been gone within a week. All he has now is an empty water jug, a gun, a couple family photos, a change of underwear, and a collection of fold-up maps. He realizes suddenly how ill-prepared he was to leave, how Blanche had been right when she told him he wouldn’t be able to make it far alone. 

Thanks to Dick, he supposes he never really was alone.

“Listen,” he says, shuffling forward with his bag in one hand and watching as Dick empties his pockets out onto the table by the lantern—gun, utility knife, a couple scraps of paper and a tiny pencil. “I, uh. I should say thank you, I guess. I know you didn’t really leave that trail for me to follow, but I might not be here without it, so…”

Dick looks up at him, still patting his pockets absently to make sure he got everything out of them. “Don’t mention it,” he says. “I’m glad it was useful. I think Ann would be glad too.”

“Ann’s your sister?” Lew asks. 

Dick nods. He turns away and becomes a dark silhouette against the fading light outside, the lantern light illuminating only the side of his face, turning half of his hair the same color as the fire.

“I have a sister too,” Lew says to fill the silence. “Blanche.”

“Younger or older?” Dick asks as he bends down and starts pulling cushions off of the couch.

“Younger.”

“Mine too.” 

As Lew looks on, Dick tosses the cushions aside and pulls the bed out of the sofa. That explains why Lew didn’t see a place to sleep earlier; it was just hidden. He thinks of his bedroom back home in the Nixon manse, with its solar-powered lighting and king-sized bed. This should seem quaint in comparison—it should make him sorry he left—but he’s only glad he’ll be spending another night on a mattress instead of the hard ground, and this time he won’t be alone. 

Dick straightens the sheets and the coverlet, then grabs a blanket off the floor and holds the corner out to Lew. “Help me with this?” he asks, and together they spread it over the bed, tugging it back and forth between them until it’s straight and even. When they’re done, Dick takes a deep breath and spreads his arms. “Sorry, but this is all I have. If you want, I could spare one of the lanterns and we could set you up next door…”

Lew is confused for a moment, which must be a testament to his exhaustion. He stares down at the small, lumpy bed, then imagines the two of them trying to fit into it together, and his eyes snap up to Dick’ face. “Oh,” he says. “I didn’t think…I wouldn’t want to…uh…”

“Or I could sleep on the floor,” Dick says. “I’ve slept worse places.”

“No.” Lew shakes his head. “No way. I’m the guest here; if anyone’s sleeping on the floor, it’s me.” 

“What kind of host would I be if I let you do that?” Dick asks.

Lew gives him an exaggerated shrug. The truth is, he doesn’t want to go check out any of the other rooms. He doesn’t want to be alone in a strange building in a strange city hundreds of miles from anything familiar. He guesses if he was smart, he would be more nervous about sleeping in the same room with a stranger, one who had a gun trained on him not that long ago, but he pretty much gave up on being smart when he left his high-walled home and set out into the world alone. Might as well go for broke.

“Then I guess we’re sharing the bed,” he says.

They stare at each other for a long moment, and Lew expects Dick might insist on sleeping on the floor after all, but in the end he breaks eye contact, wiping his hands on his pants, and moves past Lew to the kitchen. “Before we turn in,” he says over his shoulder, “are you hungry?”

Lew is—starving, in fact—but he’s become so used to the feeling in the last few weeks that he didn’t notice until Dick drew attention to it. Now he follows Dick into the kitchen with one hand over his stomach, like he can discourage it from churning that way. Dick opens a cabinet and Lew gets a glimpse of a meager stash of cans, less than ten total, and he feels guilty when Dick picks out two of them and holds them out so he can take his pick. 

“Chili or chicken soup?” Dick asks. His expression is apologetic, as if he’s sorry he can’t offer something a five-course meal instead. “The chili is better cold.”

“I’m not a fan of chili,” Lew lies, and plucks the soup out of Dick’s fingers. 

They eat at the table and barely speak a word to each other the whole time. Lew’s soup tastes like salt and tin more than anything else, but it hits the spot nonetheless. He isn’t about to complain about another meal he didn’t have to work for. When there’s only about an inch left in the can he tips it toward Dick and asks him if he wants the rest—it’s _his_ food after all—but Dick shakes his head. 

“Look, you’ve given me enough already,” Lew protests.

“There’s a caravan that comes through once a month with food for trade,” Dick says, “and a couple of the guys are trying to build one of those hydroponic farms.” He gestures at Lew— _finish it_. “I’m not going to starve because you ate one can of soup.”

Dick is already done with his own meal, and he gets up from the table before Lew can mount another argument. He tosses his empty can in a cardboard box by the door, where it clinks against others of its kind, and he puts his spoon in the sink, even though water must not have run through these pipes in decades. Lew forces down the last couple spoonfuls of his meal and then follows suit. 

The last light slipped out of the sky while they ate, and when Lew looks out the window, all he can see is a faint mirror image of the apartment reflected back at him. The shadow version of Dick moves toward the sofa bed, unbuttoning his shirt as he goes and then stripping it off, leaving him bare to the waist. His skin is pale in the lanternlight, his shoulders spackled with freckles. Lew plucks at his own t-shirt and thinks about how thin he’ll be underneath it, how weak-looking. Back home, he had started to gain weight—too much of his father’s moonshine—but all that melted off of him on his long walk, leaving little more than skin and bones. He thinks he’ll sleep in his shirt.

He turns his back to Dick and sits on the edge of the bed to take off his boots, his rank socks. What he wouldn’t give for a shower; maybe in the morning he can get Dick to take him down to the lake for a dip. He coughs quietly to cover the sound of his fingers on his belt buckle, but by the time he turns around again, his pants a puddle on the floor, Dick is down to his underwear too and is standing there watching him.

“You sure you wouldn’t be more comfortable if I slept on the floor?” Dick asks.

“Don’t be silly.” Lew tugs back the sheets on his side so he doesn’t have to look at Dick’s face. “We’ll be warmer this way anyway. Must get cold in here at night, right?”

Dick makes a noncommittal noise, but he clearly is out of arguments, because he peels the covers away on his side too, and then they are sliding into the bed at the same time, knees and toes bumping as they situate themselves. Dick reaches over to the table and puts out the light, plunging them into darkness. Lew can just barely make out the shape of Dick next to him, the back of his head, the rise of his shoulder and his hip. Past him, out the window, he sees a rectangle of orange light in one of the buildings down the block, and he can’t decide if he’s comforted or worried by the presence of more humans close by.

“That’s Harry across the way,” Dick says, as if he can feel Lew looking. “Welsh, I mean. You met him before. He lives over there with a guy named Lipton.”

“How many of you are there?” Lew asks, his voice just above a whisper. Something about the darkness, and having Dick so close, makes him feel that he should be quiet.

“Not many. Maybe a dozen so far. There are other groups scattered around the city though. We mostly steer clear of each other.”

Lew nods, though Dick can’t see him. Blanche, who always seemed to know so much about the world, told him that city living was becoming fashionable again. During the collapse, those who wished to survive spread out into the rural areas where they could grow food and raise livestock, but now that things have settled down, human nature dictates restlessness. Exploration, manifest destiny—it seems wired into their very DNA. Lew can’t help but wonder if that’s what he’s doing here too, his own version of exploring. No man was made to spend his entire life hiding behind walls. Not even him. 

“I can’t say I get the appeal,” he says, turning over on his back and staring up at the ceiling. With his eyes, he traces cracks like spiderwebs out to the corners of the room and wonders how likely it is that the room above will fall down on top of them in their sleep. “All these buildings crammed in together. No farmland. Too easy for enemies to move around.”

“Do you have enemies?” Dick asks, and Lew can almost hear the raised eyebrow.

“Anyone who has food has enemies.”

“Well then, it’s a good thing I don’t have much of that.”

Lew chuckles, shaking his head. He supposes Dick has a point there.

“Does that mean you’ll be moving on in the morning?” Dick asks through a yawn. He shifts in place, so his arm brushes Lew’s and then pulls away again, quick enough that Lew thinks he could have imagined it if not for the way his skin tingles in its wake.

“I haven’t decided,” he says. He shuts his eyes and pulls the blanket up to his chin, exhaustion already nudging him toward sleep. “But you’ll be the first to know when I do.”

———

In his old life, Lew would often sleep until noon. He had responsibilities, but none were ever urgent—get an inventory of the harvest from the farmers, settle a dispute between neighbors, take a report from the scouts. All things anyone with a pulse could do, and yet they required the weight of authority, the gravity of being Stanhope’s son and the heir to throne, so to speak. He would roll out of bed when the sun was high in the sky, get a list of tasks from one of his father’s lackeys, and half-ass his way through all of them so he could park himself in the saloon by late afternoon. 

On his long walk from Nixon to Chicago, he got used to waking before dawn, so he could get out of whatever town he was staying in while it was still dark. He never trusted those little ghost towns to be empty, not even with Dick’s symbols on the door. And he never trusted himself to be able to talk himself out of trouble, if it came down to it. He had a gun in his bag, but he knew he didn’t want to use it. The best strategy was to keep out of sight. Leave early, walk in the trees away from the road when he could, stop for the night before it got full dark, wake up and do it all over again.

So when he wakes this time and no light filters through his eyelids, at first he thinks he’s still on the road. His mind rebels at the idea of another long day of walking, and the bottoms of his feet throb in sympathy. He needs rest. Just one day of rest.

It’s then that he registers the comforting weight of an arm draped across his waist, the warmth of a body pressed against his back, and remembers where he is, in Chicago, in bed with a man named Dick Winters. A man who has wrapped around him like a lover in his sleep. 

It’s been so long since Lew was this close to someone, long enough that he can’t pinpoint the day or even the person. The last time he was touched at all was when his sister hugged him goodbye, but even that is hazy in his memory, brief as it was and what feels like forever ago. He has never been a demonstrative guy—not with his family and not even with those he takes to bed—but now he mourns for every touch he pulled away from too fast and every person he rolled away from too quickly the morning after. Now he wonders how he ever took such things for granted. This—being held like this—feels so good it borders on obscene. He thinks he could lay here for hours, caring about nothing except the way Dick breathes steadily against the back of his neck.

Or maybe not so steadily. As Lew swims further toward consciousness, he realizes Dick is not breathing the even breaths of the unconscious. His chest is expanding only shallowly, a little erratically, and it seems like he’s holding himself stiffer than he should be, his hips a careful distance away from Lew’s and his fingers curled away from Lew’s stomach. He’s awake, then. Awake and worried about being caught, worried about extricating himself without waking Lew in the process. Too late, Lew thinks, and takes a deep breath in through his nose, a mere warning to Dick before he wraps his fingers around his wrist to hold his arm in place.

“Don’t,” he whispers when Dick stiffens further and tries to pull away. Lew pulls back harder, wrapping Dick’s arm further around his middle and pressing back into the hollow of Dick’s body. “Stay.”

“Lewis.” Dick hisses into Lew’s neck, but he goes still. His fingers press into Lew’s stomach until Lew can feel the bite of his fingernails through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. 

Lew shuts his eyes. “Please.”

It’s like he’s experiencing this for the first time, the way it feels to fit his body against another body. Every part of him feels hypersensitive, every cell crying out for more contact. He threads his fingers through Dick’s and pushes his hand down, down under the hem of his shirt, so Dick is touching the bare skin of his stomach, and it’s almost too much, just that brush of Dick’s knuckles. He groans, then turns his face into the pillow, embarrassed, as a shudder rolls its way up his spine.

Dick isn’t unaffected; Lew can feel him hard against the small of his back, and his hips flex once as he pushes their combined fists more firmly against Lew’s stomach. His breaths are coming loud and ragged now, warm gusts that get trapped under the collar of Lew’s shirt. Lew can feel cool air on his face and knows that out there in the room it’s grown cold, but under the covers, pressed up against Dick, it’s almost uncomfortably hot. Sweat has broken out between his shoulder blades and between his thighs, but it doesn’t make him want to move away. In fact, he presses closer, rocking back when Dick’s hips rock forward. They groan in unison this time.

“Come on,” Lew says, and nudges Dick’s hand again, pushing it southward until his fingertips are tucked under the waistband of Lew’s underwear. They linger there, and now Lew swears it’s not hesitation but something more deliberate that’s holding Dick back. Lew has never been one to take his time with things, wolfing down meals and knocking back drinks, fucking hard and fast, but Dick strokes the skin of Lew’s stomach like they have all the time in the world, and Lew can’t even pretend it’s not making his toes curl. He arches back against Dick and presses his hips forward, but Dick’s hand slips downward only an inch or two. Their combined breathing is so loud now Lew can’t hear anything else; his head is in a wind tunnel. He reaches back and tugs Dick harder against him, hoping for a new sound, maybe a word or two, but all he gets is a little catch in Dick’s chest, then a deep sigh.

And then Dick’s hand is wrapped around him, all at once, and Lew hisses, “ _shit_ ”, and is rewarded with a chuckle. He turns his head to the side and Dick’s mouth brushes the hinge of his jaw, first accidentally and then with more intent. Lew wonders what it would be like if he turned around and kissed him, if it would feel strange or if it would feel just right, like Dick’s hand feels just right, like his body does in all the places they are touching. “Shit,” he swears again as he bucks through Dick’s fist. “That’s…”

It’s _good_. Dick is gripping him tight but his movement is restricted by Lew’s underwear, which he hasn’t pushed out of the way. Somehow this is better, the motion of Dick’s hand mimicking the aborted rolls of his hips as he ruts against Lew. Lew reaches up and grips the back of Dick’s neck, then drops his hand to his hip, then his thigh to pull it over his own. Dick is making these beautiful little sounds, grunts and moans so quiet Lew tilts his head to better hear them. He tries to move with Dick, to push back against him and then forward into his hand, but there’s no finesse in it. 

Finesse isn’t necessary. In no time flat, he’s right on the edge and gritting his teeth in an attempt to hold onto some of his self-control. He doesn’t want this to end yet. It’s been too long since someone touched him like this, and it feels _so good_ , and he doesn’t want it to end.

“Yeah,” Dick breathes against his ear, clearly sensing how close he is. Lew closes a hand over Dick’s wrist, but Dick ignores him, moving his hand faster. “It’s alright,” he says. “Let it go.”

Lew does. He has no choice. He digs his fingernails into the underside of Dick’s wrist as he comes over his hand, biting down on his bottom lip to keep from crying out. Dick fastens his mouth to the skin under Lew’s ear and keeps rolling his hips, a little harder now. His hand is still wrapped around Lew’s oversensitive cock, gripping it a little too hard, but Lew makes small sounds of encouragement and rocks back to meet each one of Dick’s thrusts until Dick lets out a soft, mangled sound and topples over the edge himself, pulsing hot against Lew’s skin.

Afterward, they fumble around in the dark to shuck their soiled clothes. As they fall back to the sheets, it seems like Dick is going to turn away and keep some space between them, but Lew pushes away whatever awkwardness threatens to rise up in him and grabs Dick’s arm, pulls him close again and whispers, “stay.” Dick lets out a sigh—maybe relief, maybe resignation—and his arm encircles Lew’s waist once more. Already sleep is coming for Lew again, as if he never really woke up at all and is shifting from one good dream to another. The last thing he feels before consciousness slips away is Dick’s mouth, a hot ring against his shoulder.

———

When Lew wakes, the sky outside is the dark gray of pre-dawn, but Dick is up and moving around, taking their dirty clothes and putting them in a big plastic bag. Lew frowns and rubs his eyes, runs his fingers through his hair, manages to force his mouth into a grin when Dick glances his way.

“I’ll need to borrow something to wear, I guess,” he says. Dick ducks his head, and Lew can’t be sure in the low light, but he thinks he might be blushing.

Dick loans him some jeans and a t-shirt and waits patiently as he gets dressed, his limbs slow with soreness and exhaustion. When he finally gets to his feet, Dick tips his head toward the door and says, “Come on. I’ll take you to get washed up, but I want to show you something.”

They head for the staircase, Dick with the plastic bag full of clothes in one hand, but once they reach it Dick heads up rather than down. It’s eight more flights of stairs to the top, and after only two Lew thinks about complaining, but his curiosity gets the better of him. He wants to see whatever it is that Dick has in store for him. He has a feeling it’ll be worth the pain in his feet, in his knees.

At the top of the stairs, they go through a door and emerge onto the roof. It’s nothing special at first glance—a cluster of long-empty water tanks; a few rusted-out exhaust vents; an ancient-looking generator with a few tools scattered around it, like Dick’s been trying to fix it—but Dick takes him by the elbow and pulls him toward the eastern edge of the building, right up to the low concrete ledge, and then gestures outward, bidding Lew to take in the view.

So he does look, his eyes widening as he takes it all in. The city fades into a stand of trees, which fades into a sandy beach with fingers extending out into the gray-blue lake beyond. The lake itself is shrouded in morning mist, and when Lew glances around he sees that the same mist obscures the buildings a few blocks away in every direction, so it feels like they’re floating on an island in the middle of a vast ocean of white. As they stand there, a few rays of sunlight cut through the fog and gild the water and the tops of the trees and the windows across the street. Strange, Lew thinks, that it could be so beautiful here, in a city that stands as a monument to the civilization that almost cannibalized itself. Strange to think that Lew might have gone his entire life and never seen any of this.

“Not bad, huh?” Dick says, knocking him with his elbow. “Do you get the appeal now? Think you might way to stay a while?”

Lew turns to look at him, taking in the light dust of freckles on his nose and the way the morning sun makes the ends of his eyelashes glow, turns his hair redder than ever. He has a sentimental urge to kiss him then, but he settles for smiling, one shoulder coming up in an approximation of a shrug.

‘Why not?” he says, turning to look out over the city again and the nothingness beyond. “I’ve got no place better to be.”


End file.
